5 ms·

"Munger Hall, in comparison, is a single block housing 4,500 students with two entrances" Is it even possible to make it fire code compliant?

macinjosh 5y ago
Entrances != Egresses. Do you ever notice those doors that say emergency exit only?
- spyspy 5y ago
  They clearly forgot to count the windows..
  - moralestapia 5y ago
    "Don't worry, there's plenty of fake windows you could use, oh wait..."
  - mindcrime 5y ago
    A lot of deadly fires happen at night when people are in bed sleeping. And most of the "bedrooms" in this building would not have windows, per the article. an 11-story, 1.68-million-square-foot structure that would house up to 4,500 students, 94 percent of whom would not have windows in their small, single-occupancy bedrooms. "Ah", but you might say, "just use someone else's window!" To which I say "bullshit." If it's 3:00 in the morning, and you have a bunch of sleepy, probably hung-over (or still buzzing) college kids, and a building full of smoke and superheated toxic gases, the odds that these kids will successfully locate and utilize another window strike me as so low as to not even be worth considering. Drunk college kids don't do well with dormitory fires, or at least that's what a lot of historical evidence suggests.
- mindcrime 5y ago
  Which history shows us tend to be locked or barricaded when they're not supposed to be, or obstructed in some other way, or otherwise unavailable. Sure, there are other egresses available in principle. Hell, you can sledge-hammer your way through a wall in a pinch. But in any practical sense? Having two primary ingress/egress points is a horrible idea.
  - maxcan 5y ago
    You know that the world has progressed since the Triangle Shirtwaist fire, right? I know that its hard to to believe that there has been progress in the last 100 years, as we sit here communicating effortlessly across the globe, protected from huge numbers of diseases that ravaged humankind, enjoying workplace fatality rates decreased by multiple orders of magnitude, enjoying universal suffrage, etc etc.
    - mindcrime 5y ago
      You know that the world has progressed since the Triangle Shirtwaist fire, right? Of course I do, duh. The question is "how much has it progressed?" Note that the Hamlet fire I mention was in 1991, and the Station Nightclub fire was in 2003, so it's not like Triangle Shirtwaist is the most recent example of a mass fire tragedy. And there are other examples, those three just happened to be "top of mind" for me. as we sit here communicating effortlessly across the globe, protected from huge numbers of diseases that ravaged humankind, enjoying workplace fatality rates decreased by multiple orders of magnitude, enjoying universal suffrage, etc etc Sure, but most of those things are orthogonal to fire safety.
  - ldoughty 5y ago
    I can't recall the last time I saw a fire exit blocked... Feels like one of those things people keep repeating because of a handful of newsworthy events a year...
    - lozenge 5y ago
      If a handful of fire exits are blocked during a fire every year, aren't there 1,000x more that are blocked during no fire?
    - dihydro 5y ago
      Go to your nearest grocery, hardware, or department store, head to the back on the day that a truck comes, and look around. Just because you haven't seen it doesn't mean it exists. You fell into the argument from ignorance fallacy. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Argument_from_ignorance https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Argument_from_ignorance
thisisnico 5y ago
This seems like a disaster waiting to happen.
exhilaration 5y ago
There must be an exception for structures with intentionally limited exits, such as prisons and billionaire-designed student housing.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
AutumnCurtain 5y ago
I remember sitting in my dorm room in FT (at UCSB) and watching the Tea Fire flames jump closer and closer. Fire is a huge threat in the area, even that close to the coast. This seems like insanity. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tea_Fire?wprov=sfla1 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tea_Fire?wprov=sfla1
- saagarjha 5y ago
  To be fair, the area is likely to be fully evacuated hours before any wildfire threatens it.
raldi 5y ago
Yes, because what matters is exits, and I count at least ten stairwells on every floor: https://pbs.twimg.com/media/FC1jlGjVEAIvAG8?format=jpg https://pbs.twimg.com/media/FC1jlGjVEAIvAG8?format=jpg

macinjosh 5y ago

Entrances != Egresses. Do you ever notice those doors that say emergency exit only?

spyspy 5y ago
They clearly forgot to count the windows..
- moralestapia 5y ago
  "Don't worry, there's plenty of fake windows you could use, oh wait..."
- mindcrime 5y ago
  A lot of deadly fires happen at night when people are in bed sleeping. And most of the "bedrooms" in this building would not have windows, per the article. an 11-story, 1.68-million-square-foot structure that would house up to 4,500 students, 94 percent of whom would not have windows in their small, single-occupancy bedrooms. "Ah", but you might say, "just use someone else's window!" To which I say "bullshit." If it's 3:00 in the morning, and you have a bunch of sleepy, probably hung-over (or still buzzing) college kids, and a building full of smoke and superheated toxic gases, the odds that these kids will successfully locate and utilize another window strike me as so low as to not even be worth considering. Drunk college kids don't do well with dormitory fires, or at least that's what a lot of historical evidence suggests.
mindcrime 5y ago
Which history shows us tend to be locked or barricaded when they're not supposed to be, or obstructed in some other way, or otherwise unavailable. Sure, there are other egresses available in principle. Hell, you can sledge-hammer your way through a wall in a pinch. But in any practical sense? Having two primary ingress/egress points is a horrible idea.
- maxcan 5y ago
  You know that the world has progressed since the Triangle Shirtwaist fire, right? I know that its hard to to believe that there has been progress in the last 100 years, as we sit here communicating effortlessly across the globe, protected from huge numbers of diseases that ravaged humankind, enjoying workplace fatality rates decreased by multiple orders of magnitude, enjoying universal suffrage, etc etc.
  - mindcrime 5y ago
    You know that the world has progressed since the Triangle Shirtwaist fire, right? Of course I do, duh. The question is "how much has it progressed?" Note that the Hamlet fire I mention was in 1991, and the Station Nightclub fire was in 2003, so it's not like Triangle Shirtwaist is the most recent example of a mass fire tragedy. And there are other examples, those three just happened to be "top of mind" for me. as we sit here communicating effortlessly across the globe, protected from huge numbers of diseases that ravaged humankind, enjoying workplace fatality rates decreased by multiple orders of magnitude, enjoying universal suffrage, etc etc Sure, but most of those things are orthogonal to fire safety.
- ldoughty 5y ago
  I can't recall the last time I saw a fire exit blocked... Feels like one of those things people keep repeating because of a handful of newsworthy events a year...
  - lozenge 5y ago
    If a handful of fire exits are blocked during a fire every year, aren't there 1,000x more that are blocked during no fire?
  - dihydro 5y ago
    Go to your nearest grocery, hardware, or department store, head to the back on the day that a truck comes, and look around. Just because you haven't seen it doesn't mean it exists. You fell into the argument from ignorance fallacy. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Argument_from_ignorance https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Argument_from_ignorance

thisisnico 5y ago

This seems like a disaster waiting to happen.

exhilaration 5y ago

There must be an exception for structures with intentionally limited exits, such as prisons and billionaire-designed student housing.

deleted 5y ago
[deleted]

AutumnCurtain 5y ago

I remember sitting in my dorm room in FT (at UCSB) and watching the Tea Fire flames jump closer and closer. Fire is a huge threat in the area, even that close to the coast. This seems like insanity. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tea_Fire?wprov=sfla1 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tea_Fire?wprov=sfla1

saagarjha 5y ago
To be fair, the area is likely to be fully evacuated hours before any wildfire threatens it.

raldi 5y ago

Yes, because what matters is exits, and I count at least ten stairwells on every floor: https://pbs.twimg.com/media/FC1jlGjVEAIvAG8?format=jpg https://pbs.twimg.com/media/FC1jlGjVEAIvAG8?format=jpg